The war is escalating beyond what anyone could either guess or comprehend. Juno's daughter has effectively shown her abilities as she tears up a Manhattan neighborhood to get at Barnes and Lei as they themselves try to kill each other. But confronting Juno proves more surprising and more deadly than they could ever imagine, especially when Alexander joins the fray.

A Manhattan neighborhood being torn apart by something that,
by all rights, shouldn't really exist.

But it was a little hard to argue suppositional rumor when
the streets were being peeled back from their gravel base. A few uprooted pipes shot water fifty feet
into the air, and the remnants of both Lei's and Barnes' gangs scattered for
safe ground only to find every horizontal surface was being ripped up from
under their feet.

The windows blew out on every floor of the brownstone and
the little ball of fire floating just above the building seemed to be drawing
every molecule, no matter what it was attached to, towards her. Thus, streetlights ripped from their
concrete bases (snapping ten-inch bolts), the trees and rod-iron fencing and
entire cars were lifted into the air only to collide, shred and feed shrapnel
to the increasingly erratic winds.

A streetlight turned javelin pierced the side of a
neighboring building three floors up.

Bricks were sucked out from fascias whose loose mortar were
seen as rustic, and would be later confirmed as treacherous and in desperate
need of repair.

And an '84 Honda fell from the sky, turned into a
gas-fueled, flaming pinwheel rolling down the street and tried to neatly bisect
Desdemona before she jumped from its path.
"Dragon!" she screamed, and threw up a wing to protect her
face. "We cannot stay here!"

"We noticed..." Broadway answered.

As his mate ran to his side for safety, Othello seemed
intent on the little, green, human-shaped sun above even as a few rod-iron
spears hit the sidewalk beside them.
"She is obviously not human."

"Fay?" a voice surmised.
It could've been Delilah, or even Hudson's thick, distinguishable
brogue, the clan's voices drowned by the carnage. They were regrouping under what shelter hadn't yet torn from the
ground and pulled an Oz into the air.

"Why would a faerie have a grudge against two mob kingpin
wannabes?"

"Hybrid?"

"She looked young..." Angela mentioned, thumb-talon on her
lower lip.

And all the while, Lexington had grounded his gaze, watching
the streets unravel. The sensors in his
eyes were measuring electricity from snapped power-lines at a few thousand
amps. "Before the world exploded." he
argued. "Alex is young, but he could
also snap the Eyrie in half with a sneeze."

All the while Brooklyn had remained silent, watching
Ambrosine throw a fit five stories up in a display of power reminiscent of
Alexander Xanatos. Things were never
simple, at least not any more. He
didn't blink in his low-ridged scrutiny, until something hit the ground beside
them: a body. One of Lei's. The reality of the storm came roaring
back. "We've got to get inside." he
said. "There's no fucking way that thing
up there is here by coincidence."

As entire chunks of street broke off and flew upwards like
attacked to some giant string, Lexington scrambled in between the jigsaw pieces
using a thermograph to see what portions of the road were still firmly attached
and left a trail for the others to follow towards Barnes' brownstone.

"What about Shadow?" Katana asked of her mate before they
reached the doors.

Brooklyn had taken up the end, and as he hit the first step,
looked behind into the wasteland of what used to be a rather peaceful
neighborhood. "I'm pretty sure he can
take care of himself..."

Especially when one had already shredded through part of
your pancreas, and a breeze was working itself through the holes leftover.

Shadow had found himself left with a bleeding gut and the
last annoying human remaining from the miniature army Barnes' and Lei had set
against each other for pride and territory, and this particular one wasn't
going to lie down without a fight. He
could barely get close without feeling the spiraled rush of air burn past him
and was forced on the defensive, especially with a sharp pain in his side that
dulled his reflexes.

Looking like a pincushion (Shadow had landed a few good hits
with his shuriken and throwing knives) Ice was shooting at every shadow and
moving piece of debris out of sheer desperation, seeing the creature weave in
and out of objects on the street.

Something hard skittered on the asphalt and he turned to
catch the barbed tail disappear behind a parked van. A thin, spattered trail of blood was the only evidence that thing
was ever there.

He fired, layered the entire length of sheet metal with
holes, then breathed.

And breathed again.

And listened.

A war was going on in the background, but Ice pushed
everything out of his mind, centered on his immediate surroundings and somehow
didn't notice the car being lifted up behind him.

Grabbing the sub-compact by its axles, Shadow's muscles were
clearly defined against the exertion that was ready to pop them from his
skin. But the prolonged creak of shocks
and springs relaxing without the weight of compression made a peculiar if not
telltale sound and Ice turned around to nearly eat the molded plastic of a
bumper.

He could've sworn it grazed him as it passed over his
shoulder, impacting just behind. Ice had
dodged just in time, but having a car nearly take off your head would rattle
even the most war-hardened veteran if only for a few seconds.

An opening Shadow was hoping for if not for the wild spray
of bullets.

Ice didn't know how many times he'd fired but by the time he
recovered, the thing was gone.

Shadow had effectively vanished into the night. But somewhere, a riled growl rang out. This was getting annoying; he'd taken out
the Pack in less time. But this man was
a fighter, a smart, patient fighter, and knew well enough to stay safely
out of range and cover his ass when need be.
He wasn't as proud as the Pack had been in Egypt, rushing at him to
desperately prove a point in superiority.
Shadow ducked around, and hoped to relieve the human of more of that
ammo that somehow he'd been able to replenish ad infinitum.

He made noise on one car and drew fire in the direction,
even though he was long gone.

Knuckles rapped on another and paint was scraped from the
metal surface.

"Where are you, bastard?!" Ice screamed, realizing the
creature was now playing with him. "Where
are you?!"

Shadow was patient as well, and knew how to use fear and
anger just as well as any physical weapon.

Blam!

"Come out!"

Blam!

"I'm sick of your games!"

Blam!

"If I have to shoot up this entire goddamned neighborhood I
will!"

Click, click, click...click.

Ice looked down the barrel.
"Damn..." He had a few more
clips, on the back of his belt. Time
seemed to slow as if to allow him enough time to measure in his head and debate
just how fast he could top off his ammunition.

But the trigger hitting an empty cartridge was all the ninja
needed to hear. Shadow's eyes led a
streak of cobalt blue as he leapt from the darkness with all the intent to sever
something from the human's body before he could reload.

But before he even reached him, light preceded an explosion
and bathed the entire street so intensely that, for a moment, the world around
them both turned Kelly green. Gravity
suddenly reversed and they were both pulled into the air and into the maw of a
storm.

Barnes and Zhu shot to their feet, scrambled over dead bodies
and hands clutching from the wounded and each dove for their respective
weapons. Lei got to his first and
knowing the long-range capabilities coupled with Lucian's pretty decent aim,
plucked the sword by its hilt and raced towards any piece of solid upended
furniture before he caught a bullet through the spine.

The desk, African dark-wood, a couple hundred pounds; it'd
do.

He flipped over and took cover just as splinters exploded
from the edge. Barnes had found his
gun.

"Fucking Chink!" he roared, taking chunks from the
varnished surface of his own prized desk.
As long as he hit the wiry little shit, pierced the heart, exploded
brain, he didn't care. Even as a small
tornado started to pick up debris just through the hole in the roof and throw it
around the brownstone's most spacious suite like knives he didn't care, he
wanted Lei dead and as quickly as possible.
"Goddamned fucking Triads!" Barnes' voice was barely heard over the
unremitting fire of his gun and the storm raging above. "I hate their elitism, their arrogance,
their mysticism..."

Lei wiped the blade across his sleeve, baring steel from
beneath the drying blood. The desk
shuddered as another bullet imbedded in the thickest part of the wood.

"I hate the entire Asian culture and most of all, I hate
young, ballsy, snot-nosedPUNKS!!!"

Lei let him talk, waste words. In between the bullets, his voice eventually growing louder was
telling him just how close he was getting.

Three more tremors, three more bullets.

"End of the line, Zhu!" Barnes growled. "I'm taking this city and I'm taking it
all! I've worked too damned long to
lose everything now!"

Five meters away.
Near point-blank range. Lei
needed him closer.

Barnes continued towards the upended desk, firing, until
he'd reached about arms' length. Then,
something soundlessly tore through the air.

All Lucian saw was a distorted mirror image flash past
him. The sword, the little bastard had
swung his sword faster than his eyes could follow. For a moment he wondered if his hands had been taken off, before
gathering the courage to look down and see the damage done; his gun was a few
inches shorter. "Hn...!"

Lei was up and on the offensive in an instant, but he'd
underestimated Barnes' strength, the supercharge of adrenaline and, of course,
the dread of nearly having one's hands sheared off at the wrist. Like nitrous in the blood, Barnes kicked the
desk and knocked some distance between him and that blade.

It was all Lei could do to dig in, screech to a halt and brace
himself against three hundred pounds on a blind rampage. Barnes grabbed the edge and hefted the
equally heavy slab into the air without so much as breaking a sweat, intending
to crush his opponent beneath it, but Lei stood his ground and locked his elbows,
intending to let a blade that could split a human hair do all the work.

Two halves fell on either side of him, and the sword tipped
forward slightly, the weight having disappeared quickly enough to shift his
balance. Barnes was ready with a fist the
size of his head and swung. Lei rolled
to the side, dodged the massive, clenched paw and kicked his opponent's legs
from underneath him.

The floorboards groaned at such weight coming down.

He scurried atop the pinstriped mountain, thrust an elbow into
Barnes' neck and angled his sword. The
blade dropped with intent to sever jugular, voicebox, esophagus, anything in
the slim path of steel aged six centuries, but as the tip met flesh, it
stopped. At what could have been the
last moment of Lucian Barnes' life, Lei hesitated.

Bodies were strewn everywhere and the steps were a little
slick, the remnants of a small war that seemed inconsequential at the moment. Especially when the building felt like it
was rocking back and forth.

As the clan continued upwards, Delilah slowed when noticing
a screw slowly spiraling out from the paint on its own. A low vibration led her eyes around and down
and into the darkness of what they'd left behind on the mad dash for the top
floor. "Brooklyn!" she yelled out. "The building...!"

He stopped and hung himself over the banister, looking down
the staircase shaft, only to see wood and plaster, metal railings, drywall and
crown molding dislodging from the underpinning, and warping. The entire structure at the first floor blew
its nails, and the interior walls violently imploded.

Ambrosine was intent to swallow the building, or at the
least, learn origami on a city-sized scale.

Barnes was as stiff as a plank; he could feel the sword
parked on his skin and the warm bead of blood curling around his throat. He didn't dare go for his gun.

Lei's eyes had hardened into anthracite, unable to reflect
or read. He simply kept his hand
clenched on the grip, his free arm braced against the meaty trunk of Barnes'
neck and his foot on the larger man's leading leg.

"Whu's th' matter?" Barnes managed, every word (and every
subsequent tremor through his vocal cords) scraping against the blade. "No...balls?"

Lei leaned in, and grazed teeth over chestnut skin. "I'm thinking of my father." he revealed in a
rasp that came from just below his throat.
He hadn't yet spoken since bursting through the doors. "A sudden, inexplicable thought I know, even
with what's going on all around us and even as I can finally have the pleasure
of pulling your intestines up through your neck, but I can't help it. As much as I want you dead right now,
something is whispering at the back of my soul."

"...what th' fuck'r y'talkin' 'bout...?"

"You're myopic, Barnes." he hissed. "No forest for the trees. You feign intelligence, but shoot what you
don't or can't understand."

Barnes struggled helplessly at the grip Lei held on his
body's pressure points; he went to Yale damnit. But he was effectively trapped, and all he could see from his
vantage was the carpet, distant bodies and every small piece of furniture
beginning to (oddly) lift from the floor.

"You are a close-minded, racist fool. And my father would sometimes accuse me of
the exact same thing. I called his
introspectiveness a flaw, and I was proved right when the back of his head was
blown out when negotiating rather than ridding himself of his enemies. I refused to show any weakness, any mercy, I
refused to make the same mistake as my father did and right now, removing your
head from your shoulders would rid me of my biggest obstacle."

"...then...do it..."

The blade shifted and Barnes tensed up, only to put more
pressure where Lei had him pinned.

The ripple sent up the big man's spine was proof of his
surprise. He didn't think Lei was even
remotely serious.

He was. "Hand over
everything you have, unequivocally, and you won't die by my hand. I don't need a war on two fronts wasting
valuable people, resources and money or run the risk of turning you into a
martyr that your people would die for.
You'll relinquish control and disappear from U.S. soil."

Barnes' response, unsurprisingly, was a bit of drool-laced
growling. "Fuck...you."

"Fifth floor." Katana announced quietly and threw a cautious
gaze on either side of the corridor.
Nothing but bodies. "Clear."

Brooklyn tapped Othello's shoulder. "Move."

The archer took point and kicked the doors from their hinges
just as Lei was about to make a hole through Barnes' neck.

If he aimed, it was hair-trigger; the only sound above the
wind was the bowstring slapping into place against the reels, and a low whistle
that wasn't able to keep up with the arrow.

Howling in pain, Lei rolled off and let go of the sword when
his entire arm went briefly numb.
Katana grabbed for it and when at a safe distance, inspected the blade
between her talons, comparing Chinese expertise at weaponry to her own.

Brooklyn walked past the man clutching at the growing red
stain on his shirt and grumbled, "Oh quit your bitching, it's not fatal." He made a circle around the other one, who
was busy coughing up something into his hand.

Barnes was a little disoriented, and thought it was his own
men who'd made the miraculous rescue, until he looked up. And froze.
Swallowed his tongue. Hands shot
towards him, and he flinched when the claws caught light and yanked him by the
collar. "Jesus–"

"Who is she?"

"W-What?" Lucian was
barely able to tear his eyes from the slightly Mephistophelian creature with
claws far too uncomfortably close to his neck.
Horns, incandescent eyes, brow and hooked beak and crimson skin, it was
all he could do to slowly slide his gaze upwards from one horrifying sight to
another.

Brooklyn saw the hint of recognition flash through the
coffee brown of Barnes' irises, then quickly fade as soon as he realized just
how much he was giving away, like a steel trap snapping shut. "I said," three-fingered hands knotted at
the pressure applied, and the big man winced, "who is she?!"

It took a moment for the proper synapses to fire. "Juno's...Juno's little brat, I think."

"You think?!"

"I've only seen her a few times!"

By the glow of his eyes, Brooklyn's features were faintly
outlined. And they clearly, chillingly
hardened. "And who the hell is Juno?"

Somehow, Lucian would quickly re-grow his backbone, "Who the
hell do you think has been attacking our shipments?!"

The grip relaxed on the Barnes' lapels. "She's the third..." Brooklyn presumed.

The winds suddenly shored up, funneled through the hole in
the roof and every gargoyle felt the change in direction on their wings. Ambrosine floated back down into the suite
with a gaze that seemed to wash over everyone like a shot of pepper-spray,
until it centered on the two mobsters.
She touched down, and a perfectly concentric ring of debris was quickly
blown away with a snort. "Mother wants
you dead."

Broadway swallowed, "Now that was creepy."

"Anyone have an idea?" Brooklyn whispered.

Othello quickly nocked another arrow despite the worried
glance from his mate, drew the bowstring to about a hundred pounds (more than
enough to pierce and actually pass through human skin) and felt the
feathers spin against his talons as he let go.
The graphite shaft whistled, sought flesh with accomplished aim and
struck.

It sunk into Ambrosine's neck; the force behind it jerked
her head at a morbid angle. She barely
blinked.

"Othello...?!"

"Iron." he explained, watching intently for any kind of
reaction.

Fay had the tendency to either scream, convulse or watch
their own veins bulge at the skin when exposed to the simple metal. It was poison reaped from the earth for
creatures used to recreating their own atomic structure to suit every twisted
fancy, but the little girl didn't show any such consequence. She merely grabbed the shaft and yanked it
from her flesh, then, with a glance, obliterated the arrow with a stray
thought.

Brooklyn felt himself pale.
"She's not fay..."

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Barnes screamed on instinct, considering
the average human mind would have trouble functioning at this point. Lei was equally dumbstruck, the pain of the
arrow buried in his shoulder briefly forgotten. "What the hell is she?!"

"Not fay." Brooklyn repeated darkly.

With Broadway having subtly nudged her behind him, Angela
asked over his shoulder, "Then what do we do?"

He saw her hand rise; he felt the air clench, as if every
molecule had just been compressed and collectively changed direction. "Run." Brooklyn whispered, noticing how
Ambrosine's eyes took on a tantrum glint.

The gale threw daggers; the wind was picking up, and a faint
electrical charge could be felt on the skin.

"Broadway, grab Barnes," Brooklyn shot out, shoving the
human towards his brother and thumbing a talon towards the nearest window,
"Othello, Lei. We're getting the hell
out of here and we're taking them with us!"

Lei went to stand.
"We are not going anywhere with you damned freaaaAAAUGHHH!!!"

Othello had grabbed the butt-end of the arrow, neatly
cleaved between the ligaments and a conveniently located bundle of nerves that
shut him up far quicker then knuckles off bone. He had the little gangster on the end of a stick and steered him,
gently, towards the exit.

But sweet, murderous Ambrosine wasn't about to let them
leave. "I said," she hissed, "Mother
wants the bad men dead!!"

The top floor was almost sheared off and half the wall
exploded outwards, catching a few of the clan unawares as they were knocked off
their feet and barely able to right themselves before the five-story drop came
to an abrupt end.

"Damnit!" Herding
the rest outside through the gaping hole still hemorrhaging furniture and other
debris, Brooklyn looked to Hudson, who'd remained behind as the last to
leave. "Come on!"

"In case you didn't happen to notice, she's about as
powerful as a few fay we know."

"But undisciplined.
I dinna plan on stoppin' her, just slowin' her down t' let ye escape."

"Hudson, damnit–"

His mouth was suddenly jammed full of hand as Hudson
smothered his beak and shoved him out.
Brooklyn was just able to untangle, spread his wings and fight the storm
to get any kind of altitude.

As his clan escaped with the two junior mafias hanging from
the ends of their talons, Hudson turned and found himself reflected by soulless
eyes. "Come now, little one."

But she merely looked him over and centered on his chest;
all the bravado the gargoyle could rally was nothing to hide the flaws of
mortal being and flesh. "You have a bad
heart."

His brows rose, "What?" and his arms began to tingle. Someone was stepping on his chest. "Damn..."

"I can make it worse."

Hudson dropped to his knees, and as he struggled to breathe
through a quickly constricting chest, the irony of actually wanting those
damnable pills was lost on him. From
his vantage all he could see were tiny feet taking tiny steps past him and
towards the hole, presumably to chase after his clan.

He couldn't allow that.
Even as his capillaries tightened and the myocardium was starved of
blood, he'd managed to keep a firm grip on his sword and prayed he had enough
strength left to...

SHUNK!!

Ambrosine screamed when the wide, slightly curved blade shot
out her chest a good foot (the old solider had uncanny accuracy for such a
heavy, lumbering weapon).

That slowed her down.
She could probably restructure matter if she concentrated hard enough,
but still a small girl the sight of a sword protruding through the chest was
enough to unnerve her, and successfully divert her attention to the 2x4.

Hudson nearly took her head off and ended breaking the plank
in half over the human-sized billiard ball that rolled several feet away, sword
clanking as she tumbled. The gargoyle
trembled, collapsed face first and hit the floor, just conscious long enough to
watch as Ambrosine stirred and appeared on the verge of tears. "...ssstay..." his speech was hideously
slurred, "...away from them..."

"Mother..." she squeaked.
"Wants the bad men dead."

Everything around him was blurring, liquefying. "...ye dinna have to..."

Ambrosine stood up, still a little shish kabob. "But I want to. I like death."

"...then kill me...an' be done with it!"

"I will." She
floated a few inches off the ground and out into the night.

Hudson felt a tremor run the length of the flooring through
his cheek (though slightly anesthetized).
And it was a few seconds more before the floor itself cracked, buckled
and eventually gave out, sending him plummeting into an abyss of broken floors.

The brownstone crumbled up, then down, imploding neatly into
its own foundation with a plume of gossamer white smoke.

He managed to grab at a slab of concrete about ten feet
square and anchor himself to something heavy, to keep him from either being
lost in the tornado or floating into the atmosphere with the rest of the
debris.

Pieces of road were colliding in mid-air and the scent of
human (the air thick with bodies) was permeating his senses to the point where
finding Ice would prove problematic.

He'd disappeared.

Shadow struggled to maintain his hold in winds that were
threatening to tear off his skin, but something didn't feel right. Was it the alien energies, or...?

No, a presence through the airborne junk. And then, a sharp stabbing pain in his side
before he could react.

In the midst of his own cry of pain and the blackout in his
vision, he struggled to look over his shoulder and see Ice hanging from a
jagged piece of rod-iron railing that'd run him through near the kidney.

A lucky shot.

Ice clung to his weapon, twisting the makeshift spear into
the creature's guts. "Why don't you
hide now?!"

Shadow was too busy trying to hang on than listen.

"You were so confident when you could conceal yourself in
the dark!" He got a better grip and
kept twisting, feeling organs rearrange against the steel rod. "How confident do you feel now?!"

Nearly biting through his lip, Shadow kept his talons
embedded into the small piece of street as it was tossed between airstreams
like being thrown between ocean waves.
This was getting annoying, and thus, he intended to end it. Using his wings to moderately steer the
heavy, unresponsive 'raft' into another piece, they collided and Ice nearly
lost his grip.

The collision sent them spinning, with Ice dangling at the end of the rod. With no gravity, there wasn't any sense of
'down'.

Seeing a clear path, Shadow grit through the pain, ignored
the foreign object stabbed halfway through his torso and flipped around,
catching his human passenger by the throat.
But in the process he'd let go, sending them both into the mercy of the
storm. "I have bested better creatures
than you!" he screamed.

"Then do it!"

He pulled out the lance from his side and grabbing him by
the shoulder, showed the mobster the sharp end coated in his blood. Whether he intended to visit the same fate
on Ice or something equally heinous, only his thin gaze and slight, toothy,
bloody grin would reveal the truth.

Until, before he got the chance, everything shuddered around
them and something shot out of the brownstone's top floor. And if the building suddenly collapsing
underneath them weren't enough to end the fight, then perhaps it'd be the
familiar, downward pull.

Gravity had just kicked back in, and everything in the air
that didn't quite belong dropped like a stone.
Chunks of asphalt, cars, debris and bodies rained down on the street and
anyone still alive were either killed in the impact or had to get up and run
(limp) for cover.

While Shadow was able to right himself and slow his descent,
Ice was at the mercy of an evolution coming up two wings short of a gargoyle. He fell, doing about eighty klicks, and
struck with so much speed he made a perfect human-sized dent in the pavement.

He would've survived, maybe, if the Lexus that just
happened to be above him hadn't completely and totally crushed almost every bone
in his body when it landed.

Shadow came to ground, and grunted, looking over what was
left of his opponent. "Hmph."

He'd never been much into compassion, thus, he didn't give
the dead mobster a second thought as he waited for everything else to crash down,
hobbled past and stepped on a single, writhing hand jutting from underneath the
wreckage, hearing a few metacarpals splinter and snap.

The first warning they were about to make the corner of ninth
avenue and West 54th were sixty squealing tires.

The sirens and blaring horns were useless, considering they
were blending into the city's already jumbled background noise. People on the crosswalk only had that
distinctive sound of rubber shredding against asphalt and the vague instinct of
an approaching object to warn them of the police cars that had suddenly
appeared from around the corner.

By the time the pedestrians reached the safe haven of the
sidewalk, caught their breath and looked down the road to see what had almost
killed them, it was all a white, black and flashing red blur.

Number 59 out of the twenty-third precinct was in the
lead, with Maria Chavez behind the wheel.
Her reluctant passenger (who'd insisted she drive but was quickly shot
down by rank) was white-knuckled and hanging on for dear life. All in all, Iliana was impressed by her
captain's skills behind the wheel and if she actually felt comfortable with
anyone else driving besides her, Elisa or Matt, she might not feel the urge to
lose her lunch on the windshield.

But Maria had been silent for the entire drive and seemed
grimly determined to get to the site of the shooting as quickly as possible, if
only to stem the loss of more life.

It was getting a little unsettling until the under-dash
receiver crackled to life, filling the stillness. "...Uh...captain?..."

She could barely hear him over the siren and the engine
pushing seven thousand RPMs. "What is
it, Frenelli?"

"...We're getting a few reports of something weird happening
on the Upper East side, the very neighborhood we're heading to actually..."

"Define weird."

"...A localized stormfront and half a street floating
fifty feet in the air..."

Iliana shrugged and leaned back into her seat. "Ask a stupid question..." But with the change in position and a lucky
upwards glance, she caught several familiar forms against the violet-colored
sky. "Is that–?"

Suddenly, the second, hidden microphone under Maria's left
blouse lapel, wired to a single source outside of the NYPD, erupted. "...Maria, get the hell out of there!!..."

Good thing she'd decided to wear it after all.

"What...?" Her eyes
returned to the road, and down the yellow line that bled into the
distance. It almost looked like fire,
ghostly, and sea green. "Good
god..." Maria stomped the brake pedal
and her passenger nearly ate the dashboard as she took the seatbelt to its
limits before it locked into place.

The entire caravan of squad cars skidded up behind them.

"Ungh!" Iliana groaned, before being jerked back into
her seat. "What the hell...?"

Over the hood something loomed down the street, slightly
luminescent and gaining with every second that the two women sat wide-eyed
trying to figure out just what the hell it was.

Maria opened her door and got out, Iliana followed, as did
everyone else.

Before the tremors hit them, before the imminent danger
pricked the hairs on the back of her neck, someone behind asked, "Captain, what
is that–"

"EVERYBODY MOVE!!!" Maria screamed suddenly, and she
nearly dislodged a few windows in the throaty snarl.

Cops scattered in every direction. The vehicles that were wedged in were unreservedly abandoned as
every man and woman ran for the sides of the street and anything solid enough to
absorb the brunt of whatever was tearing up the street.

Maria and Iliana found the entrance nook of a bistro and
huddled against the doors, only to feel the entire building dance on its
foundation. The road in front of them
rippled like loose carpet, sent a few cars into the air and rolled out
underneath the ball of energy surrounding Ambrosine.

They squinted to get a better look at just what was inside.

A girl of all things.

Maria kicked herself; she knew better not to look for
monsters when sixteen-year-old kids could shoot up a convenience store. But the fact she wasn't surprised never
registered due largely to the fact that, since meeting the clan, she thought
she'd seen it all.

Until now.

And that of course was becoming a well-worn expression.

Maria grabbed for the receiver. "Brooklyn?! Brooklyn!!"

"...Are you all right?..." the Wyvern leader's voice
broke through. The rush of wind could
be heard; he was somewhere still overhead but fading fast.

"What the hell was that?!
It looked like a little girl..."

"...It was. And
she's dangerous..."

She didn't like the implicative tone. "How dangerous?"

"...Alexander Xanatos dangerous..."

Iliana turned towards her superior with her brows tucked
high into her hair. "Oh shit."

"And just where is she going?" Maria asked, with a nascent
sense of dread.

"...Wherever we're going, and that's towards Saturn
Tech. Seems the owner is the elusive
third piece to your puzzle, and this kid's mother..."

Maria tried to digest the news with two fingers on her
forehead. Looking over the smoking pile
of cars left in the wake of whatever just floated past, it seemed she didn't
have any choice in the matter. "And
what do you plan to do?"

His head shot up, throwing fire-red strands on end before
they re-settled along his brow.

There was that feeling again, stronger than the previous
nights. As if someone had lodged a
tuning fork in the middle of Manhattan and flicked it with their finger.

In the muted pastels and denim-darks of the Eyrie
infirmary, Alexander had spent another night by the bedside of his mother (no
chair, he floated alongside) and for the last few half moons, had touched
something he figured no one else was aware of.
A feeling was lapping at his fingertips, as similar to the gentle waves
he'd create in the courtyard's fountain as anything else.

His stare had lengthened, turned into a fixation, turned
into an obsession and caught the interest of someone drifting in and out of a
light slumber.

Fox noticed. Though
her body had long betrayed her, her eyes were still sharp, and their
jade-backed glow narrowed in her son's direction. "...what is it...?"

He was looking through the wall and all its layers, seeing
stars beyond. "I dunno...somethin'
bad."

"...the same bad thing...you felt before...in the
castle...?"

Alexander shook his head.
"Uh unh."

Fox drew another throaty wheeze through her oxygen mask, and
ran her knuckles through the strands of hair so red she thought her hand would
burn at the touch. It was a
double-edged sword the little h-bomb of his genetic profile, assuring to know
her son could sense everything around him but terrifying in the fact he was
either unable or unwilling to explain.
He was becoming just as cryptic as the Puck. "Then what...?"

Alex touched down on his untied sneakers and started
wandering to the closest window. The
shutter was locked in place, but a wrinkle through his brow and it unbolted and
shot up, revealing the Manhattan skyline all done up from ground floor to
ceiling in spiraled light. "There's
somethin' out there..." he said.
"Someone's doing bad things."

"...it's New York, honey...somebody's always doing bad
things..."

"Nope," he gave off a spark, "not this bad."

It was a vain hope but, "...are you sure...you don't have
any wires crossed...?"

"No!"

"...I'm sorry..."
Fox readjusted her position as best she could, to better see Alexander
over the hump of her own skeletal form.
He was shivering in anticipation of something, and she'd seen that look
before. "...you're going to go...aren't
you...?"

"No." a voice resounded in the darkness, and echoed,
to make one sound like many. "You will
not."

Alexander already knew who it was before he turned
around. "I hafta go." he told the
silhouette at the doorway.

"Alexander Xanatos, you will not leave this
building."

Everything metal in the room rattled, including the wheeled
tray near Fox's bed and a few of the surrounding machines helping to stay her
illness. Alex glared at his father, and
in the clash of powerful stares so equally fierce, one was bound to lose.

It was Alexander who'd make the first step. He decided to leave.

"Alexander!"

The small boy had also decided the window was too small and
consequently tore a chunk through several layers of steel, carbon composites
and advanced building materials that a Sherman tank would have trouble
penetrating.

"ALEX!!!"
Xanatos' scream was lost to the vacuum created by Alexander as he took
to flight, hitting a hundred miles per hour in several seconds. He was forced to watch as his son made a
green streak on the sky, vanishing.

A cold gale crossed the billionaire's neck from outside, and
something cracked the sky. Seems
Alexander had hit such a speed so fast that he'd left a sonic boom in his wake.

"...you...can't stop him...David..." a gasp came from
behind. "...he's too powerful for even you
to control..."

He turned around and into the fine-edged gaze of his wife,
either glowing or reflecting from what little ambient light was available. "And you believe I wish to control him?"

David didn't answer; he had none to give, at least none that
wouldn't be seen as entirely transparent to his wife. It seemed, in all the universe's grand schemes, it would be his
son who'd best him, and maybe unravel all the secrets he'd comfortably wrapped
himself in.

Saturn Tech was an unassuming building barely twenty stories
high, choking under the business district and the island's entire southern tip
that seemed more metal than actual earth.
It was perfect for someone who didn't want to stand out.

The clan angled in between skyscrapers, getting so close as
to actually graze the windows with the tips of their wings. They thought and hoped, maybe vainly, to
lose what they knew was chasing them.

The National Loan across the street provided a perfect
roost, a perfect view and was perfectly, dangerously out in the open. Barnes and Lei were unceremoniously dropped
on the tarpaper roof, but the downward thrust from so many pairs of wings
drowned out the pained grunts.

Brooklyn sent his eyes across and towards the top floor of
Saturn Tech (the most logical place to start as most CEOs, evil or not, enjoyed
being above their employees). "I hope
somebody's home."

"Shall we knock?" Othello grinned, which in itself was
unsettling.

Her bright eyes keen, Delilah leaned up against the ledge
and searched for any trace of life behind the darkened glass across the
street. "We're not just going to storm
the building, are we? We have no idea
what we're dealing with, and what if the mother is more powerful?"

"You have a better idea?" Brooklyn huffed. "Because we may be a little short on time."

"We are." Katana said ingenuously.

"What?"

She stiffened and slowly withdrew her blade from her
sash. There wasn't much that rattled
the samurai. "Beloved," she whispered,
"do you feel that?"

Brooklyn did, he felt it along the backs of his wings. An unnatural warmth. "Oh damn."

Somewhere far between the towers and light pollution that
seemed to rise up as a tiffany haze, a little sparkle of something that didn't belong
this far off the ground appeared from behind one of the buildings. She appeared to blink in and out of
existence and every time she grew closer until she was floating just above
them.

Angela wasn't the only one to notice the handle protruding
from Ambrosine's back, and of course the swordtip jutting from her chest; she
hadn't yet bothered to pull it out. "Is
that...?"

"Hudson's sword." Broadway answered, his tone stung by the
faraway thought that Hudson had made his last stand. His gaze wandered to Brooklyn.
"We shouldn't have left him."

"I didn't really have much of a choice, and he knew that."

"He could be dead!"

Brooklyn turned and faced his brother with haunted
eyes. "Yeah," he answered morosely, the
weight of the world on his voice, "he could."

Any argument spawned by the difference in opinion was
quickly shelved when the little girl hovering above suddenly ripped half the
building's roof from right underneath them.
They staggered back before being caught without a solid support beneath
their feet and quickly worked their way towards the other side of the roof,
dodging heating vents and air-conditioners until they simply ran out of space
to run.

Ambrosine appeared on the opposite side and chewed up part
of the ledge. It was going to be a
rough ride getting into the air to safety if she hadn't unexpectedly halted the
rampage and looked away from the clan.

Broadway took up position near his brother. "She stopped..."

"Why?" he whispered back.

It was Lexington who spotted him first and darted out a
hand. "There!"

Someone had perched overhead, standing on air.

"Alex..."

Alit in his characteristic emerald glow, Alexander hovered
over the group in a protective stance and already, the ceiling they stood on
was knitting together nail by nail, weld by weld. His eyes were dead-set on the girl in the midst of shearing
winds. "Go."

Brooklyn didn't argue.
"Let's move, people."

"Are we just going to leave him?" Angela protested.

His response was a hard hand against her shoulder, urging her
towards the ledge as the others took flight.
"Yes."

By the faint green flashes of light outside her window, she
thought at first her daughter had returned home from successfully completing
her task. But when the decanter on her
desk had trembled, sending rings through the water, she knew not all had gone
to plan.

Then the thought came of just what could actually stop her.

A dark shape at the window yanked her from her reflection,
quick enough to think a bird had shot past the tinted pane until it coalesced
into something bigger and much more frighteningly defined.

The red one was the first through (the leader, she mused)
followed by seven more with two familiar humans in tow. Her front window reduced to shards that were
now being worked into the carpet, inhuman creatures dispersing into her office,
Juno's only response was to cross her legs and whisper with intrigue, "Ah."

Brooklyn expected a scream, a gasp, or at the very least a
wide-eyed gape in his general direction.
But the woman relaxed in leather the color of dark golden brandy was as
unmoved as a cadaver, and if her eyes weren't open and her lazy, half-lidded
gaze pierced through the relative darkness, he'd think her as such. "Are you Katherine Juno?" he approached
cautiously.

Ignoring the question, Juno looked the creature over with
more than a simple interest. "It's been
a very long time since I've seen a gargoyle."

The lavender one cocked her head, and let curiosity trickle
from the fearsome pretense. "You know
of us?"

"I've bedded more than a few in my time." she said, almost
gluttonously. "If my ex-husband can
seduce and breed weak-willed mortals, then I will, and have
invited many to my own."

If he hadn't already noticed the cavalier attitude, the
comatose-like serenity and the odd scent surrounding her, like an aura,
Brooklyn was getting the vibe this woman wasn't quite normal. "We're here to speak to you about your
daughter."

The CEO smiled. "Is
that who's making all the noise?"

"Cut the bullshit, Juno, you deliberately sent her after
Barnes and Lei."

Katana stepped up beside her mate, and Juno followed the
exposed blade from hilt to tip. "You
used her as an assassin!"

"Because she's just so good at it."

"And just what the hell is she?" Brooklyn snarled.

"And why, pray tell," the ocean placid demeanor finally
showed a crack when shifting back towards the leader, "besides the snarling
mask of contempt, should I tell you?"

Near the fireplace's marble mantle, he carefully threaded
his gaze through the expensive bobbles and grabbed a small statue that looked
as if it was already going to break apart with a strong breeze. He knew it was old, rather valuable (it was
a four thousand year old, incalculably priceless remnant of a vanished culture)
and thought it broke quite easily when crushed between his fingers and
palm. "I'm asking politely."

Juno leaned back, feigned defeat and sighed, "She's the
pride of her father's powerful loins.
If he was sober enough to realize just how special she is."

"Special? As in
'faerie' special?"

"Oh my dear creature, no, we are far more than fay."

"We?" Brooklyn noticed. "And just who or what the hell are you?"

What followed was a smile that seemed ageless, and that sent
chills down a few of the gargoyles' spines.
"I've had many names, but mortals used to refer to me as Hera, queen of
the gods."

Alexander and Ambrosine were looking each other over,
getting a feel for their respective opponent through what discriminating senses
they owned above the normals down below.
The heir to the Xanatos fortune was sure he'd found the source of the disturbances
in this black-haired girl that had a few similarities to a certain friend he'd
recently lost, despite her eyes being cold.
"What are you?" he asked.

She sneered.
Apparently he wasn't of enough pedigree to speak with her. "What are you?" Ambrosine returned.

"I'm human."

"You stink of something else."

"You stink!" Alex shot back. "Like death and blood!"

"Are you...?" Her
features widened, then clenched. "One
of them?"

"Wha...?"

The sky exploded with color and waves of compressed air that
could've easily shattered a few windows.
Ambrosine was quick on the offensive and rushed her counterpart, but her
hands (aimed for around his throat) found faerie glitter. His image broke apart and blew away on the
winds she herself was creating.

Alexander had disappeared.

And as the girl swung her head around, hungry to find him,
he was far above observing her every frantic, rabid move from the largest WVRN
communications dish. He'd learned just
like his father to seek out any kind of weakness, and her impatience was first
and foremost in the flaws he'd already noticed.

She was arrogant.

Far down on the already crippled National Loan building, a
flagpole wiggled itself loose, tore away from its mortar and bolts and shot
up. It would've been a second mortal
wound for Ambrosine if she hadn't seen the glint of light off the pole's pitted
chrome surface and blinked from its path, the fearful yelp cut off halfway
through.

Alexander peeked out a little further from his hiding place
when Ambrosine's presence completely vanished.
He figured he was safe until the antenna tower creaked and started
shivering under his hand.

Brooklyn crossed his arms, while a few looks of dark
skepticism ran through the clan. On the
periphery of the conversation, Barnes and Lei traded glances.

"You don't believe I turned Io into a cow as punishment for
her affair? You don't believe I drove
Heracles mad and caused him to murder his own wife as well as his
children?" She stood up, and the
flicker of something like anger and a little more like a bomb going off washed
through her now livid features. "You
don't believe the first time I met my husband he was disguised as a cuckoo and raped
me?"

Brooklyn was resolute.
"No."

"The ego on you mortals..." Juno hissed under her breath,
while fire danced in the lightless crux of her eyes so much as to erupt like
her temper, and give credence to her claim.
"I am a god, little creature!
I am more than your primitive thought processes and electrical synapses
could ever comprehend. If you
even could conceive of my true form, your tiny skull would burst!"

"I don't give a goddamn about what you think you are, only
that I'm not going to allow you to wage a war on these streets."

"Will you report me?
Arrest me, kill me?" She
gestured fluidly in the general direction of the Hole. "Manhattan is teetering on the brink of that
rather large crater in the pavement. If
you cut off the head, the body dies, and several thousand people lose their
jobs and their livelihood, which New York can ill afford at the moment."

"And you don't think I wouldn't have a little more
protection," she licked her teeth, enjoying how the gargoyle's bluster seemed
to melt away under her overly-confident, unremitting stare, "would you?"

It was then a resounding creak went through the floor
underneath the carpet; to a gargoyle's finely honed sense of hearing, it was
the precursor to someone, and someone big, entering the room. From the other side of the office, two
hulking forms easily rivaling Goliath's size swaggered their way into the faint
lamplight and what appeared under the rosy tangerine glow was skin the color of
cement, black eyes and no discernible scent.

They looked human, but also decidedly different from
anything else the clan had ever seen.
One ground his knuckles into the opposite palm, and the other cricked
its neck.

Juno preened at her jacket, adjusting the cuffs and moving
on to her nails. "Please, gentlemen," she
bid them, "do what you do best, break bones, rend flesh, but do watch the
entrails on my carpeting."

Every bolt, nut, weld and connection that held the dish to
its tower snapped, tore and ripped away until it was free to the mercy of
gravity and its own weight. It
plummeted at break-neck speed, scraping against the building's exterior with
Alexander riding shotgun inside a parabolic seat.

Ambrosine chased after him, and hoped to see the boy
splatter all over the pavement.

But a few meters from impact and derailing the A train
currently running underneath, Alexander pulled up and leveled out his angle to
skim across the street, using the dish like a toboggan as he headed towards the
island's southern tip and open sea. If
anyone had heard him as he rocketed past, they would have turned, found nothing
and wondered at the wind and ghostly laughter fading into the discord.

Seeing the faerie actually enjoying himself as she tried her
best to kill him, Ambrosine dogged him all the way to Battery Park, the docks
and eventually into the harbor. Traffic
at this hour was sparse on the East river and Alexander gently lowered his
makeshift craft into the water, skipping like a stone on moon-dappled swells.

The surface so placid, so mirrorlike, Alexander could see
the girl above him closing in for the kill and leapt out. The dish went up like a Frisbee and with
Ambrosine so close behind she didn't have time to dodge as it collided (CLANG!!!)
and slapped her into the ocean. The
blow had some mustard on it, enough to send her five hundred feet down before
she was able to right herself.

The water boiled, trembled and a murky black shadow appeared
underneath the waves before she burst out leading with a snarl.

"They are Kratus and Bia, or, in your primitive and quite
limited English, Force and Violence."

The clan scattered into the spacious confines of Juno's
office as her dead-skinned gorillas each split up and went for the closest
target they could reach, throwing furniture from their way.

"They were my former husband's former lapdogs, proudly doing
the bidding of Zeus."

Othello reared back and got enough room to sink two arrows
into Force's forehead before he realized he could probably exhaust his entire
quiver without doing enough damage, considering the demigod shrugged off the
graphite shafts buried in his brain and attempted to put his fist through the
gargoyle's head.

"Maiming, killing, tying defiant gods to rocks all because
he supposedly gave the gift of fire to the mortals."

Dodging a four-knuckled freight train, Othello felt the
clenched hand graze his hair as it passed over his shoulder and shattered a
supporting timber that made up one of the office's wooden arches. He was barely able to get both himself and
Desdemona out of the way as Force threw his fist around on a wicked backhand.

"But of course, we all know that the humans developed fire
on their own. They aren't that
stupid, despite the sloping brow."

With Lexington and Delilah running interference, Katana was
swift enough to land her sword across Violence's forearm, cleanly severing the
appendage. It hit the floor with a
weighty thud, but the creature merely picked it up and held it to the stump
(that strangely wasn't bleeding); tendons and blood vessels reached out,
grabbed their mated ends and the entire arm sewed itself back together.

"I've lived among them for a thousand years at the very
least, and they are a seditious, impatient, cunning species."

Brooklyn tried a fist against the distracted henchman's
head, but ended up pulling back with a nearly broken hand; their bones were
like steel. "Damnit," he grunted
through the pain of swelling knuckles, "how do you kill these things?!"

"You don't." Juno offered from across the room. "They're not really alive, or dead, they
exist somewhere in between. Limbo."

He turned a dark look that could've peeled paint. "Then tell me how I can kill you."

"You can't kill a god."

As the remnants of the clan dog-piled on the two demigods,
Brooklyn stalked his way towards Juno who'd yet to bat a lash at the chaos in
the midst of her office. "I can smell
the traces of perspiration, hear a heartbeat, watch as your eyes dilate, you
seem pretty damned human to me, and I'm forced to wonder just how far this
disguise of yours goes."

She raised a hand and marveled at the flesh. "An incredible facsimile, isn't it?"

He'd made this particular
section of the room with a quick sweep of his eyes and found a spear the
closest weapon in his reach. The scent
was iron, the tip was still sharp and this woman's relentless conceit was
overriding every rational warning his brain could fire at him.

Juno noticed the direction the creature's eyes had turned
and eventually centered. The spear was
one of Achilles', and it had seen its share of blood. "Will your gamble pay off?" she asked. "Am I fay? Will my skin
shrivel, dry and crack at the mere touch of it?"

His hand flitted out, snatched the spear from its resting
place and held it with the intent to use it as it was originally constructed
for. The wooden shaft creaked at the
exertion, and Brooklyn would have stabbed it through her throat if it weren't
for her expression.

Juno was the epitome of fearlessness; her heartbeat didn't
change tempo, her eyes didn't betray any sliver of apprehension. "Do it."

"Will it work?" he growled.

"Only one way to find out."

A million thoughts collided before the red haze of instinct
was slowly overruled, and Brooklyn eventually lowered the spear. Ambrosine hadn't been affected by iron
poisoning but, then again, Alexander had never shown any signs of that
particular frailty either. But
something wasn't adding up and against his better judgment he decided not to
kill her. "What are you?"

She leaned back into her chair. "I believe most well-versed mortals refer to us as the Lost
Race."

The revelation sent a shockwave through the clan, at least
those intimate with the term and the history behind it, those listening and
those who weren't currently eluding fists to the head.

Brooklyn's ridges sank.
"You're the Lost Race...?"

"Lost, weak, dead, yes.
But a few thousand years ago, oh my how we lived! We were worshipped, and the fay were all but
a nuisance who'd deceived the Egyptians, the Norse, the Chinese, the Mayans and
countless other civilizations for several millennia." In the bedlam of noise in the background, shattering glass,
crumbling drywall, the grunts and groans of the clan as they were knocked
about, her voice was remarkably clear.
"And then, euphoric from overthrowing his mother for control of the
Court, Oberon turned his attention towards us, and a few skirmishes gave way to
a campaign that would mark the end of an epoch."

"A war."

"To end all wars.
For dominance. That which
shattered societies, nations and eradicated entire species. He thought our influence over the Romans and
Greeks was...troublesome."

Brooklyn snarled, becoming impatient, "Maybe it was the fact
the Roman Empire had conquered a quarter of the planet at its peak."

"Until it collapsed." Juno amended, and her tone
hardened. "When the Lost race at last
lost the war. Our successors killed
almost all of us–"

"I thought gods couldn't die."

A few of the memorable deaths flashed through her mind;
injuries horrific beyond human comprehension, bodies transformed, mutilated and
atomized, the Earth permanently scarred as mountains were sheared off and
bodies of coastal land were broken off into islands. A rare ally to her had been transported back to the Big Bang, and
his body had completely disintegrated and spread throughout the universe,
drowning in the primordial soup. The
ultimate irony was, as she'd laugh to herself to console the pain of his loss,
that a few of his atoms were perhaps the building blocks for new worlds several
billion years later. "Gods can
kill gods," she spit, "not mortals, and you'd be surprised the imaginations the
fay possessed. And the impudence. They replaced us, played our parts to
exactness, and the survivors simply faded away or took human form to live out
the rest of their days, mortal or immortal.
But for all their power, even they could not stop human evolution." Juno stood up and languidly sauntered around
the edge of her desk. "I suppose it was
poetic justice that the fay were also forgotten as humanity simply stopped
worshipping. In this day and age, gods
are obsolete. They're better as
symbols, as commercial or religious manifestations of their former glory that
can be cut up and sold for a profit or used to blindly control the masses."

In a desperate move Brooklyn grabbed her and pulled her close,
sending a hot breath through the honey strands.

Juno indeed enjoyed the proximity to a creature that was
close to running on pure instinct, and absolutely seeping compulsions that
would sate an ancient and primal birthright if only he'd give in. "Are you going to kill me, gargoyle?" Her finger found the underside of his beak,
tucked into a crook just inside his chin.
"You don't think I would leave myself so vulnerable? You don't think if my mortal form was
destroyed in any way, I'd reset to normal, do you?"

Off the end of a tiny hand that had the approximate power of
several sticks of TNT, Alexander was thrown into a docked barge, ripping a hole
through the vessel and tearing up part of the wharf it was attached to. He skidded up the seabank, stirring up a
cloud of dust that hid him from the hunter lurking just above the water's
surface.

Absorbing the water's oxygen molecules through his skin,
Alexander slowed himself just before he slid right out of the river and
rocketed underneath to a safe distance before popping up.

But Ambrosine was waiting for him and before he even took a
fresh breath she decked him.

All the power and sound from the blow was sucked into a
single funneled explosion that sent Alexander back towards the island. He hit a warehouse and like the barge before
it the entire structure was decimated, collapsing in on itself with the young
boy being used as the bullet and bulldozing half the support beams.

If he hadn't sheathed himself in an unstable energy field to
cushion the blow, he could've been liquefied.
But instead, he'd left a trail fifty feet long, ending up on a street
outside the partially collapsed warehouse with a hole in his chest (probably
impaled by one of the broken beams). As
he struggled to breathe through his remaining lung, it all felt disturbingly
familiar.

Ambrosine slowly descended and touched down in the middle of
the wreckage, standing over a wheezing Alexander. She was intent to watch as he drew his last breath, but it was
taking more time than it should have and she was rather impatient. "Aren't you dead yet?"

He spit blood, mewled, writhed and tried to muster, if anything,
a spark. A few chunks of debris rose,
wobbled and crashed back down in the failed attempt.

"No?" Her gaze went
up to the tattered remains of the warehouse roof, found a large piece hanging
from a few twisted I-beams that didn't quite seem capable of holding the weight
and she tore it off with a wiggle of her hand.

It came down on top of the young quarter-faerie, crushing
him.

Then, more pieces, one on top of the other, until she was
satisfied that whoever and whatever that was underneath sure as hell
wasn't getting up anytime soon.

Ambrosine brushed away a few errant, jet hairs, and they
melted back into place against an almost liquid sheen. "That was...easy."

Angela would've been killed if it weren't for her mate and
the fact he'd gotten himself between her and Force's hand just in time to
absorb the blow. Blood dribbled from
between his clenched teeth and he staggered back. Upon opening his eyes he saw the demigod winding up for another
shot and blocked it, but the sheer power nearly knocked him through the wall.

"Have you ever seen a god?" Juno whispered to Brooklyn. Her eyes had taken on the luster of the
cosmos, just as deep and just as easy to get lost in. "Only a few have been in the presence of our true forms and
survived without either exploding or being driven completely insane."

It was still. And
quite eerie in the fact the city seemed to fade in the euphoria that slowly
washed over her, raising her pores. It
felt good to kill again, especially someone so potent.

But time was being wasted and she needed to find the bad men
for mother, kill them and, while she was at it, rend a few of the gargoyles
that stole them into particles of random matter. She started to walk away before she heard a hollow shudder move
through the remaining aluminum walls; metal against metal had that distinctive
chime no matter how subtle.

She didn't even make a full turn back towards the pile of
wreckage before it burst, scattering the chunks of roof into the air. Like the reactor of a nuclear power plant suddenly
uncorked, Alexander appeared within a torrent of energy that spilled out hot
and acrid, half of his torso torn away to reveal his insides.

Ambrosine narrowed her eyes, and centered on the injury a
little left of center on his chest.

The hole (affording a morbidly fascinating view right
through him) started closing. His
lungs, part of his stomach and liver, his intestinal tract, tissues rebuilt
themselves and filled out his small body to the proper shape and just as the
wound sealed itself, Alexander's newly healed lungs emptied themselves of all
available oxygen.

His scream raised the hairs on Ambrosine's neck and she
backed off, shielding herself from the explosion of light.

He expended more energy than Manhattan uses in a month, a
pillar reaching into the thinnest wastes of atmosphere and staining the loose
cloud cover a pale emerald. Alexander
breathed a refill and turned a smoldering gaze towards the little girl that had
killed him. "DON'T!!!" the voice
didn't seem to come from him. "EVER!!!DO THAT AGAIN!!!"

"We were at the top of the food chain, and nothing
was beyond our grasp."

Desdemona ripped another timber from the wall and started
swinging the nine-foot beam at any target that presented itself. It seemed to rattle Violence when being
snapped in two over his backside, but he shook it off and turned on her quicker
than she could recover from the shock.

A fist filled her vision before everything went dark.

"We could have wiped your species from the planet if we
wished to, but we took pity."

Othello saw her go down with a ribbon of blood, howled,
charged and tore two strips from either side of the henchman's spine. He ducked low and decided on an experiment,
seeing what these things had between their legs. Something solid glanced off his bloody knuckles.

Violence shrugged off the cheap shot with a muffled squeal
and put his foot through the floor, just a second too late from crushing the
gargoyle's skull.

"And now, the pinnacle of millions of years of evolution
can't even lay harm to two underlings with an infinitesimal fraction of our
power."

He tried a little more forcefully, "Stop this!" and
tried to manhandle her, but Juno grabbed his wrist and nearly pulverized the
bones attaching arm to hand.

She flipped him effortlessly over her shoulder, into the air
and down onto the surface of her desk.
It practically blew apart at the grain; nails popped and the wood
splintered as Brooklyn went right through and hit floor, nearly finding himself
a level down. Apparently Juno had kept
herself a little godly strength in the slender, well-proportioned form.

Stunned, the gargoyle moaned in pain nestled in the kindling
of a five thousand dollar piece of furniture.

Juno looked back at her henchmen, still struggling with the
clan. "Haven't you killed them yet?!"
she screamed. "I didn't go to all the
trouble of stealing you idiots just so you could slack off!"

Alexander's skin was fading through the waves of energy,
flickering in and out of substantiality as if he was made of it.

"You're immortal..." Ambrosine muttered. She shouldn't have been surprised.

But surprise was a relative term especially when she found
herself on the receiving end of a semi-omnipotent being not in the mood to
listen. The blow didn't register on any
part of her nervous system until she found herself a hundred feet from the
warehouse and fifty feet in the air trailing a thin umbilical of blood.

Before all her senses returned from the numbness centered on
her left cheek (and the four-knuckle dent), Alexander was on her, hemorrhaging
power. He hit her again, she was
knocked away until he caught up, took another swing and nearly split open her
skull.

She went down as hard as her opponent had and plowed through
a few more warehouses before breaking through the last wall and tumbling onto
the street. Despite the skinned knees
and a nagging pain in her side, Ambrosine lurched her way to her feet in time
to look up and see Alexander bearing down on her, a screaming, three foot high
comet about to wipe Manhattan from the map.
Her first instinct was to grab as much debris as possible and throw it
like gunfire at him, including some iron pieces that twisted and lengthened en
route to form very sharp and very deadly spears.

He deflected all but one small piece that caught him in the
cheek.

She didn't see any reaction. A hybrid. It was the only
explanation and the similarity to this thing made her stomach turn. But her train of thought didn't get any
farther before the pavement she was standing on dissolved and everything lit up
in bottle green. Barely able to throw
her hands up, Ambrosine took the blow that nearly tore the skin from her
forearms and knocked her into and through an adjoining brick wall.

Coughing a mixture of fluid and mortar dust from her lungs,
she swiveled towards the hole she'd made and readied for an attack. But he wasn't there. Her head jerked around, throwing an anxious
glare around the parking garage she'd found herself in. Beyond the few cars and sparse lighting, it
seemed to go on forever, fading into obscurity behind the corners and numbered
pillars and that creature could be hiding anywhere inside.

But she couldn't feel him; since they'd met, he'd always
given off some kind of signature, a sort of impression that danced like flame
along her skin. "Where are you, little
faerie?" she whispered, running her tongue along her incisors.

"Everywhere." an answer was given. The voice, as distorted as it was, didn't have a sense of direction.

Ambrosine sunk into her shoulders, and her eyes burned
through falling bangs.

"I wanta play a game." he continued. "Can you find me?"

"Find you...?"

The building started creaking from the foundation up, the
light fixtures swayed and a mild earthquake passed through the cement.

A Navigator slowly rolled from its spot, lifted from the
tires and suddenly shot towards her. If
it weren't for the sheer size of the vehicle and the resistance against the
still air, Ambrosine might have missed it.
She spun, caught the SUV with the tips of her knuckles and knocked it
away towards the wall; it spiraled, shed a few parts and, after leaving a crack
on the south wall, landed on the luggage rack.

Another car crept out, flew towards her and if she hadn't
completely torn the frame apart she could've been crushed beneath it. "I don't like your games!!" she screamed,
sending a violent wind through the garage that was building into something
similar to her display over Lucian Barnes' penthouse.

"How come?"

"You don't play fair.
Now face me!"

"Nuh-uh." Alexander was enjoying this. "I'm hiding."

"I'm going to kill everyone you love!! Splay them open, eat their insides!"

"No." The voice had
swiftly dropped the playful tone; seems the game was over as quickly as it had
started. "You won't."

Her feet left the floor, and in the midst of her cyclonic
tantrum she was pulled upwards towards the ceiling. Her momentum never stopped even when hitting the cement, steel,
wood and insulation of the building's first floor, and in fact continued to
increase as she was yanked through each floor above despite her best
efforts. One after another, through
offices, stairwells and bathroom stalls until she hit the last and exploded
into the sky.

The last thing Ambrosine saw was Alexander standing on the
roof before she was thrown into orbit.

Blood was flying, spattering on walls and drapes, the broken
furniture and holes in the drywall, three of the clan had already fallen and those
still left on their feet were barely able to stand let alone successfully dodge
a seemingly inexhaustible Force and Violence.

With Othello tiring, Broadway was the last of the muscle
while Lexington and Katana weaved in between the fists being thrown around.

Juno was holding Brooklyn down with a hand around his
throat, crushing the life from his body.
The Wyvern leader couldn't get her to release even with a few deep
clawmarks across her forearm, but he kept desperately trying, considering he
could see his mate fighting a losing battle on the other side of the
office. Force had cornered her, she
caught him with a few stabs until he'd knocked away her sword as fatigue was
quickly robbing her of her skills.

The creature looked mean and hungry and wanted his first
kill of the night.

Brooklyn struggled, using every last ounce of strength; he
wouldn't watch her die from the floor.
"Ungh...!"

His eyes went nova white, bleeding the color from the
surrounding skin. "...get...off..."

But Juno simply put more pressure on the gargoyle's larynx.

The last thing he saw was a fist being raised towards his
wife, before a dim haze started to swallow the world around him. "...no..."

"ENOUGH!!!"

It'd gone off like a gunshot and gargoyle, god and demigod
alike froze at the voice. Everything
went deathly silent, all but a few quick pants.

Juno seemed particularly incensed at the latest intruder as
she turned to peer at the doorway leading into the hall. Her eyes lit up, turning a peculiar shade of
carmine across the pupil as astonishment quickly gave way to pure,
unadulterated, bone-deep fury. "You...!!"

As unbelievable as it seemed, Titania stood at the threshold
and her very presence halted the battle in its tracks. "This ends." she decreed. "Now."

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